My Resume for Congress

This morning while watching C-Span I heard Congressman Jessie Jackson Jr make an announcement in the House of his desire for the unemployed and the "99er's" to send there resume and story as a cover to Congress. This apparently is not his first request, and I found a story at Huffington Post on this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-thornton/rep-jesse-jackson-jr-rece_b_809589.html . Jessie has gotten over 15,000 resumes already.  For those of you who want to send congress the story of your job search and your resume the address is resumesforamerica@mail.house.gov


I'm not going to post my resume here, but here is the letter:


Dear Congress,

I am 60 years old, too young to be retired, too old to be unemployed. In the current economy and at my age and health my chances of re-employment diminish.  I wasn't planning to retire early, but rather late, because of my small amount of savings.  Now, when I do get a job again, I will have to postpone retirement even longer.  I had almost no contacts about employment in spite of applying for about 6 to 12 jobs a week since I lost my job.  My economic circumstances had gradually eroded so that I had to start living in a rooming house. 

Since I returned to Seattle,in 1993,  I have largely worked in either retail or parking and had worked for Ampco Parking for 13 years.   I haven't had even 72 hours of work since I lost my job last September, and am almost completely dependent on my unemployment check. My bills are piling up. I am planning to start selling my book collection and some of my Videos and DVD's.  I am planning to discount my landline and depend solely on my cell phone. 

I have lived a diverse and interesting life.  Like Obama, I was once a community organizer.  I organised A Tenants Union in Santa Cruz, CA once, and then worked in organizing low income workers and neighborhoods, helping their causes and providing services.   I have always been someone to volunteer, stating in high school or get involved, and to think of the needs of others. I volunteer at my church on movie nights, as an usher, and on the Peace and Justice Committee.

I have also been a journalist in the past.  Now write two blogs and do other online writing. One of the blogs is about my unemployment and life in the margins of America, drawing perspective from the Catholic Worker movement and the social teachings of the church and the bible. My other blog is about the arts.  Although I have my own political and religious bias expressed in my blogs, I have my non-Catholic, even non-religious friends, and many conservative friends.  In fact some of my blog followers are conservatives to disagree with my solutions, my way of interpreting the social teachings of the church, but admire my concern for the poor and sympathize with my situation. I will probably post a copy of this email for them to read and put a link from my Facebook page to the blog post. 

 Now I am one of those in need, going to food banks, getting my coffee at Jack in the Box for 55 cents by asking for the senior discount, cutting every corner and buying only what I absolutely need. I hang out in lines with desperate looking characters. 

 I am uninsured, as Cobra was too expensive for me when I lost my job and I have what was supposed to be a sprain to the finger, but which was probably X-Rayed from the wrong angle, and seems like a permanent injury and deformation.  While I can work and use my hand, I can't type with my small finger, or close it completely.  Short of going back to the ER and getting more unpayable bills, without benefits I have no means to treat it. 

I am hanging in their with the support and prayers of a great church community, my family and friends, my Facebook friends and blog readers. I try to be thankful to God every day for each little thing he provides me and to focus on the bigger issues --like the struggles of the Egyptian people, our nations problems, everyone else who is poor or unemployed.  I am hoping, that like the 1930's, we will end the decade as a less selfish, more cooperative, more optimistic nation that when we entered these hard times.  I will pray for our nations leaders tonight, that all of you get granted the wisdom to help our suffering people. 

I have attached, saved in SkyDrive, my general purpose resume. I have of course have other resumes, but my general one tells my story.  

God Bless you and God Bless all the poor and unemployed,

Joseph Drake


So dear readers, I'm going to ask that as you send your letter and resume to Congress, you send them to me also, so that I can publish as many of them as possible.